Summer Vacation with SWAT

Sarah and Lainey with SWAT

This summer, for the first time, we decided to let Sarah bring a friend on vacation with us.  I have always been nervous about allowing someone to come for the fear of home sickness or that they end up driving each other crazy all day, every day which would ruin the trip for everyone.

Sarah was excited at the prospect and invited her BFF Lainey.  We were on day four and off to a great start.  On that evening we returned to our hotel only to be told that we weren’t allowed to enter.  There were at least 20 police cars and a SWAT team vehicle surrounding the hotel.  They wouldn’t tell us anything and didn’t know if it would be five minutes or five hours (it turns out the five hours was closer to the truth).

Long story short, we sat in our car on the perimeter of the parking lot from 9:00pm to about 2:00am.  It turns out a man had committed an armed robbery a few days before and decided to stop in for a brief stay.  Someone saw the robbery vehicle, reported it and the rest is history.  When we returned to our room (after he was arrested) the SWAT team was standing at our door.  Apparently, the robber was staying in the room directly across the hall from us.   We freaked out a bit knowing that we had spent the night across the hall from him.  The SWAT dudes assured us we now had the safest room in the hotel as they would be there investigating most of the night (the money was still in the room).

Seriously, all I was thinking was we finally let a friend join Sarah on vacation and this is what happens.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the situation to Lainey’s mom without her demanding we send Lainey home on the next plane.  It is actually pretty funny when I think about it now.

Thankfully, Lainey’s mom did not feel we were unfit temporary parents and Lainey thought it was super exciting.  The rest of the vacation was very fun and had no additional criminal activity.